Barbara
Becker
GMD
St. Augustin, Germany
Gerhard Eckel
IRCAM
Paris, France
Abstract: Music creation always has been constrained by technology
but it is only since the advent of new media that technological tools are
directly employed in the compositional process. Computers can be used today
to represent, relate, and manipulate structures and concepts relevant to
music and they allow for direct production and transformation of sound
by the composer. Despite the creative potential offered to musical expression
by these new possibilities the application of computer aided composition
systems is still rather unsatisfactory in practice. We identified two types
of reasons that contribute to that situation: On the one hand the existing
tools cannot really cope with the complexity and the idiosyncrasies inherent
to the creative process. On the other hand the current employment of technology
in art seems to prolong a certain technological habit of mind in approaching
and explicating the world which may contradict an important objective of
art: to propose alternative ways of perceiving and conceiving the world.
What can be done to overcome these obstacles? How should computer tools
for music composition be designed and how should they be used? With respect
to the first type of problems the solutions seem comparably evident: Besides
providing powerful methods to describe musically relevant objects and their
relationships new tools should offer more adequate means of visualisation
and interactive modification with auditive feedback to allow for a better
exploration of complex musical situations - a feature especially computer
technology can offer to musical composition. With respect to the second
type of problems the solutions seem much less evident: Probably only a
global change in our attitude towards the use of technology in general
will improve its applications in the arts. The technological habit of mind
which aims at control and domination will have to be developed towards
an attitude which favours a genuine potential of technology: the capacity
to extend the repertoire of artistic expression.